Are Britons just too angry?

My family isn't the jet setting sort. I travel a great deal and spend a fair bit of time in the air. As does my uncle who is visiting me in Japan just now. But it's not common for 4 or 5 or more members of my extended family to have travel plans at the same time. So i think it is a bit funny when I think about the timing of the current, or recently ended ban on flying in Europe.

It is amazing that there could be an all out ban on flying, thinking how much money is involved in travelling. But personally I'd rather sleep at an airport a few days, or delay my vacation than fly into a cloud that has the potential to turn my plane engines into glass...I am one who lives by the philosophy of choose life.

I suppose that many Europeans don't live by that philosophy which is why they seem to be so angry about the trouble. I think it is absurd to get angry about the weather. Isn't it? Isn't it a little bit absurd to get angry about a volcanic eruption? I mean this is the first time every... every that a volcano has felt the need to erupt in commercial airspace... you think people would be a little bit tolerant of the fact that this has never happened before.

It's like if you were flying into somewhere that was at that moment having an earthquake... would you really want the plane to land? Or would you prefer it was rerouted or delayed... Is it really something to get angry about. Now I know that its hard when you are stranded and don't really have money for a hotel or have a friend in the area with a couch you can crash on, which is a good time to make some friends, and I think European hostels should have been making a move on airports advertising their cheap beds and busing people to and from to help them get through the problem.

But I read the news reports and there are words "infuriated" and "irate" and "angered" being used and it just makes me think, man I hope i never have to go to Europe and meet all these people who can't recognize that sometimes things that HAVE NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE happen and that when they do, we have no plans in place, and perhaps erring on the side of caution is nicer than allowing people to die and expensive equipment to be damaged, when a lot of patience and willingness to accept that when things that HAVE NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE happen, we don't always choose the best way to deal with them.

Rie

I watched her come home and quietly put the medal in the trophy case. And I thought, she is finished with skiing, now. I have a marathon medal just like that. It says marathon on it, but I know it was only 5ks.

She said, "thanks for all your help with the trip. Everyone had a great experience." She looked at the case and then closed the glass door. "Uh," she started.

I've started biting my cheek, I thought. And wondered when the habit started.

I asked her to help me make a flyer for some new classes. She agreed and said she would come back a little later. I agreed that was best.

Later, her mother said she would send the flyers from Tokyo. I thought as much.

That evening my student said to me, "Why can you speak Japanese?" I said, because I like to tell stories. He didn't understand. But thinking about it now, I do like to tell stories.

Dancing on water

the swan glides sleepily across the black lake
is watched
followed
a simple mystery

you ask, he tells you of all his dancing
of the feel of webbing against water
the beading rain on feathers

he tells you of the flight from Montana
of the nest he built
of the one he loved

if only you could hear his voice as more than a beautiful song
you would hear his wit
understand his smile
know the content, not just the intent of his mind

Tchaikovsky knew it.
the swan will glide. Silent,
in so many ways.

A strange sort of breeze

It was a summer for falling in love. It was a breeze off the ocean in a land unimagined. You always imagine lands unimaginable. In dreams, day dreams and Friday midday naps. But they are usually like home when you imagine them. But not when you encounter them. They are like nothing you have ever imagined when you encounter them. And when you do, encounter them, you think why didn't I imagine this sooner, it is so unimaginable. And it dawns on me the reason this word has meaning.

But there was the breeze. The light and playful air. And a light on the water, as we slipped by. It was a light present. Unexpected. Gifted nonetheless. White light on silky black. and then gone.

as we slipped into the night.

I want to sing frabjuous

want to scream it like
red bandanaed breasts
no rest for the weary
weary I am not. ever happy
but want to erase
this beat. Stop
the artificial heart and scream
frabjuous I am
frabbed call me
a cab i don't know
who's my dad
tonight this
morning this
happy day I cry and tell an old friend

you are beat feet stop
stepping stomp missing
the beat... the cut, could
the sound of sax just
stop. just cut and fall silent be forgot. but
linger longer like
the taste of it
remember the face of it

Q: What happened to all the trees?
A: They burst into flames
of flowers and set the whole town on fire
and we all sat doe-eyed in the sun's rising light

A quiet moment

This is about a prayer.

was asleep. didn't want to be. It was boring. But did sleep.

And then in sleep said, Oh God...and in the moment that thought happened awoke and finished the thought...I am awake.

wasnt' sure if it was true, so looked inward and saw it was. And thought, I am alive. And awake. And exhaled deeply and smiled, my two favourite ways of being.

Thank you. Thank you.

Amen.

I don't believe in magic

Mostly, I don’t believe in magicians. A comedian is an entertainer. But a comedian loves you. Wants you to laugh and makes jokes, awkwardly, when no one is looking. I think a magician must hate you.

Comedians love. That is why they joke. They want to laugh. Want to examine the world in you. They murmur, look at this problem. Let’s examine it. Let’s try it out. Test it in the world and find the humour. Find ways to understand why they love you. Why a ham sandwich is funny. Comedians love ham sandwiches.

A magician will look you in the eye and lie to you.

Magicians don’t love you. That is why they smoke. They want you to gasp for air. Want to create the world in you. They murmur, collude and scheme with their confederates. Let’s imagine a world not as it is. Let’s create it after our image. They want you to forget the real magic they cannot create and take their illusions as true. They want you to want deceptions.

I want magic like laughter. Magic like flowers and seeds in the winter. I want whispers of magic murmuring I’m about to giggle magic. Giggles don’t lie. I want a magician who loves me.

But they don’t, they wouldn’t lie if they did.

I want comedy not magic. I want a ham sandwich.

Pre medical

and sometimes you realize you don’t remember activities you know you must have done (did I roll through a red light without noticing or was the light green and so I didn’t notice it?)
and so try to remember
is this just absent-mindedness

Then you get a quiet headache, like rain when you need milk
and let it go. I don’t need milk and I just do not remember.
and breathe
and sometimes breath makes the rain in your head melt
and roll down the back of your throat into your chest
to be swallowed by your stomach

and you realize that you have arrived already and think of the dreaded the getting there you do not even remember and you continue you continue about what you were intending to do and think about the absence in your memory, a green light you never saw and forget quickly the quiet headache, the breath and melting and keep only the strange taste in your throat and a vague sense that it feels about 9 o’clock